Rand Paul: No One Will Ask Dems Whether They Have Incited Violence with Their Dangerous Rhetoric
As the Senate prepares to take up the House of Representatives’ article of impeachment against former President Donald Trump, which accuses Trump of inciting the Jan. 6 incursion at the U.S. Capitol, GOP Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is calling out Democrats for their own inflammatory rhetoric in recent years.
Paul, who just four years ago might have seemed an unlikely ally to Trump after the two clashed in the contentious 2016 GOP primary campaign, is now coming to Trump’s defense.
A Senate impeachment trial for the former president is “illegitimate,” as Paul wrote in a commentary piece published Tuesday by the Washington Examiner.
Paul told Glenn Beck of TheBlaze on Tuesday that the fact that Chief Justice John Roberts of the Supreme Court is not presiding over the Senate trial is evidence that impeaching a former president is a constitutional sham.
Paul is also going scorched-earth on his Democratic colleagues, especially those who have hypocritically advocated going after their opponents throughout Trump’s presidency.
Speaking on the Senate floor on Tuesday, Paul echoed words from his Examiner piece, and ripped into elected Democrats — reminding them that Trump’s words to supporters in Washington, D.C., prior to the Jan. 6 violence were not inflammatory, at least not when compared to words from Democrats in recent years.
“I know everyone here will soon march to the Capitol to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard,” Paul said, quoting a portion of Trump’s Jan. 6 remarks.
“’Peaceful and patriotically,’ hardly words of violence,” Paul said. “But what of Democrat words. What of Democrat incitement to violence? No Democrat will honestly ask whether Bernie Sanders incited the shooter that nearly killed Steve Scalise… The shooter nearly pulled off a massacre. I was there.”
Sen. Rand Paul:
“No Democrat will honestly ask whether Bernie Sanders incited the shooter that nearly killed Steve Scalise.”
“No Democrat will ask whether Maxine Waters incited violence when she literally told her supporters” to confront Trump officials in public. pic.twitter.com/ytDKsscxgh
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) January 26, 2021
Paul stated that gunman James Hodgkinson of Illinois, who attacked a group of Republicans at a baseball field in Alexandria, Virginia, in 2017, “fervently believed the false and inflammatory rhetoric spewed by Bernie and other Democrats, such as, ‘The Republican health care plan for the uninsured is that you die.’”
Paul further ripped other Democrats for their heated rhetoric throughout Trump’s term in the White House. Examples, of course, abound, though Paul specifically cited New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and California Rep. Maxine Waters.
“No Democrat will ask whether Cory Booker incited violence when he called for his supporters to get ‘up in their face’ of congresspeople, a very visual and specific incitement.
“No Democrat will ask whether Maxine Waters incited violence when she literally told her supporters, and I quote, that, ‘If you see a member of the Trump Cabinet at a restaurant, at a department store, at a gas station, or any place, you create a crowd and you push back on them.’ Is that not incitement?” he asked.
Paul also reminded Democrats he and his wife last summer were targeted by a leftist mob when leaving the White House polling the conclusion of the Republican National Convention in August.
WARNING: the following video contains language which some viewers might find offensive:
Rand Paul just got chased by a crowd back to his hotel, after leaving the White House from Trump’s Republican Party Nomination #DC #DCProtests pic.twitter.com/h1kPcZG1jh
— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) August 28, 2020
He also went after Democrats for attempting to use the government to go after Trump, while many themselves actually helped to bail out antifa and Black Lives Matter rioters, including the newly sworn-in Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Kamala Harris famously offered to pay the bill for those who were arrested. I wonder if she will be brought up on charges of inciting violence for that now that she is the vice president? Should Kamala Harris be impeached for offering to pay for violent people to get out of jail, who have been burning our cities down?” Paul asked.
Paul further called out Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan for allowing one of her city’s neighborhoods to be occupied by leftists for almost an entire month last summer.
“Shame, shame on these angry, unhinged partisans — who are putting forth this sham impeachment,” Paul said.
Paul, with sound logic, rightfully called out Democrats on the unmistakable double standard of the impeachment charade.
Since when did rhetoric from politicians become ripe for unprecedented actions such as a post-presidency impeachment trial? More importantly, as Paul noted on Tuesday, “Democrats insist on applying a test of incitement to a Republican that they refuse to apply to themselves.”
Arguably, the left’s campaign of harassment, intimidation and violence, as well as the progressive advancement of cancel culture, helped lead to the events of Jan. 6 as much as anything. Yet the Democratic Party has absolved itself of years of inflammatory rhetoric that has left millions of Americans feeling pushed into a corner.
In their attempts to undercut and oppose Trump, elected Democrats uttered words and took actions that defied the civility they now claim they want to restore.
But when looking at the incursion at the Capitol, their selective memory on political violence and inflammatory rhetoric shows that they are after what they’ve always been after — the destruction of Trump as a political force and the demonization of all those who supported the former president.
Those loyal supporters supported Trump even in the face of threats, violence and the potential cancelation of their livelihoods.
Democrats are playing the role of victim after years of stoking civil unrest.
The hypocrisy isn’t lost on Paul. It shouldn’t be lost on anyone else, either.
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